Last week, a couple members of Red Fly Studios dropped by the GameSpot office to give us a look at a pair of Mushroom Men games. Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is the Wii version, while Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi is the version on the DS. Both games tell the story of the titular race of fungi people, a newly-formed society created in the wake of a glowing green meteor that's recently struck the surface of the earth. Four Mushroom Men tribes are created by this spark of life, and each of the tribes is at war with one another to control the fate of all civilization. But it's not just the Mushroom Men who've acquired the ability to think and do battle, other plant life have come alive as well. These are the inhabitants of the world of Mushroom Men, your friends and enemies throughout the game.

The Wii version takes the form of an action-adventure game where the big feature is the ability to design your own weapons. The game calls them "scavs," which is a term used to describe the makeshift tools crafted from various bits of garbage scattered throughout the world. Each scav is made from three elements: a stem, part and cap. The one we got to see created was a thimble with bubble gum inside, with a DS stylus used as the handle. It worked like a big hammer, a weapon used to bludgeon the daylight out of the various enemies you encounter. Depending on the stem, part and cap, each scav will have its own unique attributes.

Besides beating down baddies with weapons of your own design, you'll need to solve ample environmental puzzles. This includes unblocking obstacles that stand in your way and finding ways to do away with oversized enemies (read: possessed rabbits) that stand too much of a challenge for basic combat. As for the latter, one of the examples we were shown involved you traversing your way up to the top shelf of a shed so you can knock a fan onto a rabbit. A bit gruesome, but befitting of the game's dark sense of humor.

One of the interesting parts of the combat is that there's no HUD. You'll see a targeting reticule that changes depending on what you can do with objects in front of you, but that's it. The only way you can tell what your health is at any given moment is by paying attention to the look of your character. Your character, Pax, will lose chunks of his mushroom cap as he takes more damage. When he gets lower on health, you'll see more and more of his mushroom brain. You might think of it as a pie chart with exposed brain.

Visually, there's a dark and dreary look to everything, just as you would expect of a game that features main characters grown in the dank shadows. But it's not all depressing stuff. Many of the objects in the game feature satirical packaging and branding. Our favorite was the can of soda labeled simply as "Corn Syrup." In terms of audio, there weren't many sound effects in the game yet, but we're told Primus bassist Les Claypool has contributed a handful of tracks to the game, so expect some of his unique brand of funk to emanate from your speakers at certain intervals in the game.

The DS version is a 2.5D side-scroller that also gives you the ability to craft weaponry. The story is a prequel to the Wii version and tells the story of the early days of the Mushroom Men. We should have more information on both versions at E3 in a couple week. You can expect to see more on both games in the form of a full-fledged preview then. In the meantime, take a look at some new Mushroom Men screens right here.